Before I can wipe the frown off my face, Opal comes out the side door, a handwoven bag slung over her shoulder. She’s wearing her work clothes—long flowered skirt, fringed turquoise shawl, dangly earrings made of crystal. Her eyes are turquoise too, and it’s not contacts. Cassie’s are the same color, except Cassie’s don’t come at you like lasers.

Opal has straight black hair and cheekbones that’ll stay put until she’s ninety. It weirds me out that my own mother, no matter that she’s piss-poor at the job, is beautiful.

“You were gone long enough,” she says. “Cassie’s inside.”

“I want you to look after her again in a couple days.”

“You don’t run my life, Brick.”

“You don’t pay me for babysitting!” She and Floyd were away last week. Seven whole days of Cassie, no time off for good

behavior.

“We put a roof over your head.”

“Some roof—covered in moss with the gutters falling off.”

“Exactly,” she says, with her feral smile. “I can’t possibly bring my clients here, which is why I need you to babysit. I’ll be back by four.”

She’s a psychic healer. Self-proclaimed.

She brushes past me and climbs into her shiny new Malibu. Three years ago when Floyd won the provincial award for GM Salesman of the Year, he and Opal went to Halifax for the ceremony. I can’t remember ever calling them Mom and Dad. Or Mother and Father. I don’t call Floyd anything, while Opal always made it clear that being anyone’s mom was rock bottom on her list of priorities.

This seems like as good a time as any to deal with the basics:

Name: Brickson (Brick) Thaddeus MacAvoy

Father: Floyd Thaddeus MacAvoy. Thaddeus was Floyd's father, who, by all reports, wasn't someone you'd want sitting across from you at the kitchen table. As for my name, the -son got dropped a long time ago.

Mother: Opal MacAvoy, formerly Audrey Brickson — last name was dumped after Floyd swaggered into view, no regrets that I can see, and what kind of a name is Audrey when you're preaching how a bunch of gardenias will bring about universal love.

Sister: Cassandra (Cassie) MacAvoy, just turned four.

Age: fourteen years and seven months.

Grade: nine, next September (school's only been out a week and a half and already I'm bored out of my skull).

Sports: hockey, Bantam, B team, defense.

ATV: red Honda FourTrax Automatic that Floyd won at the hospital fundraiswe (he doesn't like getting his clothes dirty, so he never goes near it. I'm allowed to use it, important errands only).

Girlfriends: none

Address: 138 Hilchey River Road, RR #4, and no, I don't blame you if you've never heard of it. Head down the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia and you're going in the right direction.

Nearest town: Hilchey Bay. Could be you've never heard of that, either.